The Paper's reporter Wang Yi
2022 marks the 70th anniversary of the Central Opera House. In late April, the Theater of the Central Opera House, which has been under construction for seven years, opened its doors and went into operation. Subsequently, due to the prevention and control of the epidemic, the "Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Central Opera House and the 2022 Performance Season" was postponed to june. After the performance of the Western operas La Traviata and Turandot, the Central Opera launched a new version of Verdi's classic opera Rigoletto from August 4 to 6.
The performance was performed by Yuan Ding, chief permanent conductor of the Central Opera House, under the command of the opera troupe, choir, symphony orchestra and stage art design and production center, and jointly completed by singers such as Sun Yan, Li Shuang and Mo Hong.
Stills from Rigoletto. This article is photographed by He Lun, Zhang Zhengdong, etc
Yi Liming and Yi Hong reunited after 30 years, "The humanity portrayed in opera is eternal"
The opera Rigoletto, also known as Rigoletto, was written by the screenwriter Francisco Maria Piave, based on Victor Hugo's play The King's Quest for Pleasure. In early 1851, Verdi completed all the music of Rigoletto in 40 days. In 1852, Rigoletto premiered in Venice.
"O woman, love to change, like a feather in the wind." Constantly changing ideas, constantly changing tones, looking cute. Kung Fu has a set, one with tears, one with a smile..." In order to surprise the audience in the premiere, Verdi did not give the score of the famous aria "Woman Fickle" to the actor until the day before the performance. Sure enough, the premiere was repeatedly interrupted by cheers and applause from the audience. "Rigoletto" and "Woman Fickle" went by and spread everywhere. So far, it has long become a classic in the world theater world, and it is also a touchstone for various opera house troupes to highlight their performance strength.
1993 edition of the program list
In 1993, the Central Opera House invited Ansimov, a well-known director of the Bolshoi Theater, to direct "Rigoletto". The whole hospital attaches great importance to it, and the roles are selected through layers, and the performance is a great success. In 2022, after 29 years, in order to perfectly interpret this new version of "Ligoletto", Yi Liming, special director of the Central Opera House, directed by Yi Liming, opera performance artist and baritone singer Sun Yan played "Rigoletto" Ligoletto, and tenor singer Li Shuang played the Duke of Mantua, singing the classic excerpt "Woman Fickle", which swept the world. Mo Hong, vice president of the Central Opera House and soprano singer, Yuan Ding, chief permanent conductor, and a new generation of young artists in the theater have all devoted their efforts and enthusiasm to this opera.
Director Yi Liming and soprano singer Mo Hong
Yi Liming was involved in the production of the 1993 edition, when he was the lighting designer. In his view, "the humanity portrayed in opera is eternal. Compared with the premiere 29 years ago, the performance venue of the new version of "Rigoletto" has changed, the main creative team has changed, the rehearsal method has changed... However, the artistic pursuit of excellence of the Central Opera House has not changed. ”
As is customary, "rigoletto" is Rigoletto's profession, and he is a clown-like flattering object for people's entertainment. But is he a good guy or a bad guy? Still just an ordinary person, the audience needs to find answers in the play.
The new version of Rigoletto blurs the context of the times and gives both the story and the characters a distinctly modern character. The brief prelude kicks off and also reveals a dark curse motive that appears several times in the ensuing plot. The curtain opens, a circular Colosseum rotates from the back of the stage, the fashion show begins, at this time, Rigoletto is set as the director of the fashion show, using fashion elements to construct theatrical story and interpret theatrical characters...
Stage design
The stage design is based on the ancient Roman Colosseum, which builds a large performance space with four rotations on the stage, and each scene is transformed by the storyline, and the performance is completed on this stage. The Duke's lyrical aria "Woman Is Fickle", Gilda's aria "Dear Name", and the Duke's quartet "Beautiful Daughter of Love" with Madeleine, Gilda and Rigoletto were deeply loved by the audience and attracted warm applause from the audience.
On the surging news reporter to observe: after the second act of the performance, according to the performance practice of this play, Rigoletto, Gilda father and daughter of this festival of the duet sang for the first time, will be sung again. With the thunderous applause of the audience, the two actors Sun Yan and Mo Hong stepped out from behind the scarlet curtain, and Mo Hong blinked playfully, opening his mouth again in the "Bravo" voice of many fans, "Great God, I love him so sincerely, but he is so thin to me." I beg you to have mercy on this negative lover! ”
It is worth mentioning that Mo Hong was a witness to the 1993 version and the "Gilda" of that year, "'Rigoletto' was the first big play I starred in after entering the Central Opera House. In 1993, I had just graduated, and I was the youngest actor in the crew, relying entirely on a burst of energy and enthusiasm to make the director's requirements. ”
Stills from Rigoletto
"The phoenix is flying", and Beijing has added a new cultural landmark
In the 70-year history of the Central Opera House, a number of world opera classics have been premiered, launched and retained in China, mainly including "Turandot", "La Traviata", "Madame Butterfly", "Carmen", "Evgeny Onegin", as well as "The White-Haired Girl", "The Red Army Is Not Afraid of Expeditions", "The Red Detachment of Women", "Marco Polo", "Farewell to the King", "Dream of the Mountains", "Red Gang Tailor" and so on. But in the hearts of generations of opera singers, there is always a common regret: no matter how good other theaters are, they are not their "home" after all.
In 2015, ground was broken for the Central Opera Theater. After more than 2,000 days and nights of hard work, especially in the past three years to overcome the repeated interference of several epidemics, this unique theater from design to construction has finally "phoenix in flight": it is about 138 meters long from east to west, about 56 meters wide from north to south, with a total height of 47.2 meters and a total construction area of 41,000 square meters. Following the long steps facing the East Second Ring Road, the 18 28-meter columns surrounding the theater come into view first, and due to the different angles of twisting, it is like the phoenix tail feathers blooming.
The newly completed Central Opera House Theater is fully comparable to the world-class theater - the overall design is based on the "phoenix" as the core to interpret the theme of architectural connotation. The tone of the theater is mainly golden yellow, and the interior is intertwined with golden yellow and red, and the eastern and western elements are integrated. The oval auditorium is distributed in a spiral, just like the light sprinkled by the phoenix when it takes off.
The theater was designed with elements from ancient Greek theatre design. After being officially put into use, it has set a number of industry firsts: a professional opera theater with the largest orchestra in the country, a 150-square-meter orchestra with a 120-square-meter orchestra that can sit open, and can accommodate a large orchestra playing Wagner's opera; The audience seats are built on the 1st to 3rd floors, and there are 49 boxes on the 4th to 6th floors, and the design of "building seat + box" can meet the needs of different audiences and create a precedent for domestic opera houses. In addition, the horseshoe-shaped grandstand structure allows C-position audiences to achieve the best experience from 24 meters away from the actors, and the reverberation time is controlled in an excellent stage of 1.6 seconds to 1.8 seconds. No matter where they are in the theater, audiences can get an almost consistent sound experience.
According to local media in Beijing, one of the major difficulties encountered in the construction of the theater is that "the dojo is made in the shell of the snail" - the theater is 20 meters to the west is the East Second Ring Green Belt, and across the wall to the south is the office building of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism - the southeast, southwest, and northwest cannot be touched, and only this "lofty" article can be done upwards. The whole process of construction of the new theater has adopted BIM intelligent system management, materials enter the site in days, accurate hoisting to the construction area, and even the installation scheme of each steel structure component is refined to the unit of minutes, "The whole project uses tens of thousands of components, each factory has a unique two-dimensional code, after scanning at the site can be accurately installed in place." Although the construction area of the theater project is only 1/3 of the "Bird's Nest", the amount of steel used per square meter is almost the same as that of the "Bird's Nest".
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Luan Meng